Last Chance Rodeo

by Kari Lynn Dell

  “What was that about breathing?” David asked.

  She curled her lip at him, her gaze locked on the roping box. Kylan nodded his head. Frosty splattered out of the box in hot pursuit of the calf, and every molecule of David’s will went into wishing Kylan’s loop onto the speckled longhorn.

  The rope whistled through the air and settled snug around the calf’s neck. Kylan stepped off, staggered through the mud, grabbed the calf, and wrestled it onto its side. His movements were a tad too deliberate as he strung the front leg, gathered the hinds, took one, two, three wraps and a hooey and threw up his hands, but he got the job done.

  Air exploded from David’s lungs, a blast of relief. He clapped so hard, his hands stung. Kylan looked over to where they were standing and gave a little fist pump, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Fourteen-point-two seconds,” the announcer said. “That gives Kylan a total of twenty-nine and eight on two, which won’t be enough to get him to the short round, but let’s give the Montana cowboy a big hand. I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing him the best of luck, whatever comes next.”

  Kylan tipped his hat to the roar of applause, then gingerly coiled his mud-caked rope and rode out of the arena.

  Mary squeezed David’s arm. “You done good, David. I’ve never seen Kylan look so confident.”

  “It’s Frosty. The two of them really click.”

  “I wasn’t just talking about in the arena, but you did good there, too.” She angled him an inscrutable look. “I’m not getting him back until school starts, am I?”

  David winced. He wasn’t supposed to be the one to tell her. “Kylan didn’t want to bring it up until after he was done roping here.”

  He was stunned when her eyes filled with tears. “It’s not a done deal,” he rushed to add. “And it doesn’t have to be clear until school starts. I can bring him back sooner.”

  She shook her head, brushing at the tears with the side of her hand. “No. It’s fine. Better than that. It’s great. The two of you…” She sniffed, swiping again at a fresh well of tears. “It’s wonderful seeing how you are together. And I swear, I’m trying really hard not to be jealous.”

  David cupped her face and kissed away the dampness on her cheeks. “Hey. He’s still yours. Always will be. I could never take your place, and he wouldn’t want me to try.”

  “I know. I’m just not used to having to share so much of him.”

  “That’s not all he was planning to ask.” David thumbed away a fresh tear. “We were hoping you’d stay, too, for another couple of weeks. That is, if you can stand being packed into the trailer with two stinky guys for that long.”

  Her mouth twitched at the corners. “Are you sure you want a girl tagging along, ruining all your fun?”

  “We’ll make an exception since you’re a pretty good night driver.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She swatted his arm and then tugged at his sleeve. “C’mon. Let’s wade on over and find Kylan.”

  She set off, splashing through the mud with those quick, purposeful strides, forcing David to hustle to keep up. Her yellow rain slicker was made for someone six inches taller, and the tails dragged. With her baseball cap pulled low, she looked younger than most of the teenage contestants.

  They caught up with Kylan behind the roping chutes, where he was scraping mud off his jeans. David’s cousin, Adam, held Frosty, stroking the horse’s neck and cooing into his ear. Adam’s eyes lit up when he saw David and Mary. He adored Mary. Everyone in David’s family adored Mary. The feeling seemed to be mutual. So much so that Mary had pulled David aside, her eyes troubled.

  “This is a great place, David. Wonderful people. But you know I’m not planning to relocate?”

  He’d looped his arms around her waist, pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You have a good place already. And lucky for me, my job is portable.”

  She’d kissed him then, so hard his brain hadn’t unscrambled for hours.

  She hurried ahead while his mind wandered, dodging through the mob of horses and kids to tackle-hug Kylan.

  “Did you see them, Mary? Frosty did so good, and Kylan…” Adam made a circling motion with his hands. “He tied that calf so fast.”

  “He did great,” David said, clapping Kylan on the shoulder. “Way to be solid.”

  “Thanks.” Kylan glanced up toward the big covered grandstand where the bulk of his fan club remained warm and dry up under the roof—Galen, Cissy, a sizeable Browning contingent, plus David’s entire family. “Starr sent me a text. She said I ended up twenty-sixth.”

  “That’s awesome.” Mary gave him another fierce hug. “I am so proud of you.”

  Kylan squirmed, pulling free, but his chest puffed up. He’d exceeded the goal they’d set for the finals. David had a feeling Kylan would be pushing a lot of boundaries from now on. Not that David was kidding himself. He hadn’t sauntered in and chased away all of Kylan’s problems; they were just on an extended vacation. Eventually, Kylan would butt up against the frustration again. He’d try and he’d fail, but David hoped the successes he was building up would be a solid enough foundation for him to stay and fight. Believe that the good would come around again, the way it had for David.

  David glanced at the rapidly clearing sky and sent up a prayer of thanks. Bless those crotchety old bastards for detouring him onto this trail, even if they’d knocked him down a few times on the way. David was convinced they’d had a plan all along, and he sure wasn’t complaining about the results.

  Frosty nuzzled Adam’s chest, more than ready to be back at the barn. His belly and flanks were streaked with mud, his legs caked solid brown on white as if he’d been dipped in chocolate.

  “Frosty wants his grain,” Mary said.

  “He earned it.” Kylan looped an arm over the horse’s neck and gave him a hug. Frosty didn’t pin his ears or bare his teeth, unlike someone else they all knew.

  “Me and Kylan are going to go clean him off and put him in his stall,” Adam declared. “Then Kylan said I can come with him and Starr to get a hamburger.”

  He gazed at Kylan with childlike adoration, his dark hair and almond-shaped eyes the same color as David’s, but his face smoother. Eternally young.

  “I owe you somethin’ for lettin’ me use your horse,” Kylan muttered with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. “Let’s go. I’m starving.”

  As usual. The kid ate like a bear coming out of hibernation.

  He and Adam headed for the barns, Frosty ambling between them while Adam talked a mile a minute and Kylan nodded along.

  “Kylan is really good with him,” David said.

  Mary smiled. “He’s never been anybody’s hero before. He’s enjoying himself.”

  The two of them stood for a moment, nowhere to go for a change, no rush to get there.

  “Are your parents sticking around tonight?” she asked.

  “Nope. The neighbor told Dad they got another three quarters of an inch of rain, so he can’t wait to get home and check the gauge.”

  And to admire the fresh green of the pastures, the grass springing to joyful life with the long-awaited moisture. David knew it was foolish, but he felt as if the whole world had shifted. From the moment he’d finally found this place where he was supposed to be, everything that had been wrong had become right again, including the weather.

  “Excellent,” Mary said.

  David blinked. “I thought you liked my parents.”

  “Love them,” she said, and then gave him a smile that made his blood simmer. “I could use a little private time, if you know what I mean.”

  Oh yeah. David definitely knew. He’d spent a sizable percentage of the last two weeks contemplating ways to get rid of Kylan. Not permanently. Just a few hours. Long enough to see where those increasingly hot kisses of Mary’s would lead if there was no one to interrupt them.

 
Traveling with her was driving him insane, in all the ways he’d expected. She was funny, unpredictable, occasionally maddening, and he wouldn’t change a thing. Not even when she made him stop at the cemetery as they passed through Crow Agency so she could place flowers on Jinx Yellowhawk’s grave.

  “If he hadn’t been such a complete waste of a human being, we never would have met,” she declared by way of a eulogy.

  Classic Mary, tough and soft, all twisted up in one fascinating package.

  When David wasn’t busy roping, he split his time between fantasizing about unwrapping her and debating how long he had to wait before he dared confess he was crazy in love with her. “We could go out to dinner while Kylan and Starr are at the dance.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “I’d rather ask if Kylan could stay at the motel with Galen and Cissy tonight.”

  David’s heart expanded, squeezing the air clean out of his lungs. Him. Mary. Alone in his trailer for an entire night. “But…they’ll all know.”

  “That we’re having sex? Yep. They will.” Her eyes sparkled with amusement and a touch of heat.

  “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “Not as much as not having sex with you.” She stepped closer, grabbing the lapels of his raincoat and stretching onto her tiptoes to narrow her eyes at him. “I love you to death, Dudley, and I respect your personal choices, but if you tell me we have to wait until we’re married, I’m gonna have to hurt you.”

  He lost his air again, reeling from the slam-bam punch of hearing Mary say the words I love you and married in the same sentence. He gave her a hopeful smile. “Or maybe you could just…marry me?”

  Her jaw dropped. Then she laughed, a peal of pure joy. “Eventually, yes. But not today. So…you wanna get naked or what?”

  “Yes.” He hauled her into his arms, planted a kiss on her lips. “Definitely, yes. In the worst way.”

  And now he knew exactly what that meant.

  Acknowledgments

  Given that my road to publication was nigh on endless, uphill and against the wind, there is no way this book would have seen the light of day if not for dozens of people who’ve given me a hand up or a kick in the ass along the way. It’s impossible to name them all, so I’m just going to throw this out there to all the writers in the Twitterverse who’ve propped me up and all the beta readers who’ve endured my early drafts without telling me to toss my laptop off the nearest mountain. I’d hug you all except you know I don’t do that mushy crap.

  Without Janet Reid this book wouldn’t exist because the two year break after my son was born would have stretched on indefinitely if she hadn’t said, “Hey you, time to write something new.” And what I did write would have continued to be a hot mess without her unflinching feedback. And for trading me to the amazing Holly Root, who has continued to push me onward and upward.

  Thanks to Crystal Posey because she is awesome in so many ways and accepted boxes of Coffee Crisps as payment in full for her amazing art and web work for far longer than she should have.

  Cynthia D’Alba deserves all the credit for pushing and prodding me to make this into a full blown novel, then hooking me up with her wonderful, then Samhain editor, Heidi Moore.

  And to Mary Altman and everyone at Sourcebooks Casablanca who decided to give this book a second chance and a new life, a big thank you from all the readers over the past couple of years who have wished for a mass market paperback version. Here you go, good friends!

  To Nicholas Marco, who was the first publishing professional to tell me I didn’t suck, and who bothered to check in from time to time over the years to see how things were coming along.

  Special recognition to Karen Templeton. She was the first published author to speak to me online, which led to the rather astonishing discovery that she was a human being just like me and gave me the courage to think I might be able to make it, too. Over these many years she has taught me by her example what it truly means to be a professional. If I ever have the chance to meet her in person I expect to embarrass both of us. She has been warned.

  A shout out to the “real” Muddy—a horse named Freeway—his owner Tod Slone, and the Durfey family. Their story brewed in the back of my head for over a decade before I finally came up with this highly fictionalized version of my own.

  And last but certainly not least, to all of my Muddys, better known as Betsy and Scotty and Ember and the buckskin mare, aka Nicky, aka the hell bitch. If I survived all of you, this publishing gig should be a piece of cake.

  Can’t get enough Kari Lynn Dell? Keep reading for a peek at the first book in the Texas Rodeo series

  Chapter 1

  It was Labor Day weekend and the night was tailor-made for rodeo. Overhead the sky had darkened to blue velvet, and underfoot the West Texas dirt was groomed to perfection. Music pounded and the wooden bleachers were jammed with every live body within fifty miles, plus a decent number of tourists who’d been lured off the bleak stretch of Highway 20 between Odessa and El Paso by the promise of cold beer, hot barbecue, and a chance to get western.

  Violet Jacobs maneuvered her horse, Cadillac, into position, mirroring her cousin on the opposite end of the bucking chutes. She and Cole both wore the Jacobs Livestock pickup rider uniform—a royal blue shirt to match stiff, padded royal-blue-and-white chaps to protect against the banging around and occasional kick that came with the job. Tension prickled through Violet’s muscles as they waited for the next cowboy to nod his head.

  She and Cole were supposed to be emergency backup during the bull riding, charging in only if the bullfighters—the so-called cowboy lifesavers—failed to get the rider and themselves out of danger. Trouble was, the odds of failure got higher every day. For a bullfighter, speed was key, and if Red got any slower they’d have to set out stakes to tell if he was moving. He’d worn out his last legs two weeks back. What he had left was held together with athletic tape, titanium braces, and sheer stubbornness. At some point, it wasn’t going to be enough.

  Violet’s gaze swung to the younger of the pair of bullfighters. Hank vibrated like a bowstring as the bull rider took his wrap and used his free hand to pound his fist shut around the flat-braided rope. The kid was quicksilver to Red’s molasses, as green as Red was wily. If he would just listen, work with Red instead of trying to do it all…

  The gate swung wide and the bull blasted out with long, lunging jumps. Red lumbered after him like the Tin Man with rusty hinges. The bull dropped its head and swapped ends, blowing the rider’s feet back, flipping the cowboy straight off over his horns. He landed in a pile right under the bull’s nose. Hank jumped in from the right, Red from the left, and the two of them got tangled up. When Red stumbled, the Brahma caught his shoulder with one blunt horn and tossed him in the air like he weighed nothing.

  Cole already had his rope up and swinging. Violet was three strides behind. The instant Red hit the ground, the bull was on top of him, grinding him into the dirt. When Hank scrambled to his partner’s rescue, the bull slung its head and caught the kid under the chin with his other horn, laying him out straight as a poker.

  Cole’s loop sailed through the air, whipped around the bull’s horns, and came tight. He took two quick wraps around the saddle horn with the tail of the rope and spurred his horse, Dozer, into a bounding lope. The big sorrel jerked the bull around and away before it could inflict any more damage. Violet rode in behind shouting, “Hyah! Hyah!” and slapping the bull’s hip with her rope. He caught sight of the catch pen gate and stopped fighting to trot out of the arena toward feed and water. Violet wheeled Cadillac around, heart in her throat as she counted bodies. The breath rushed out of her lungs when she saw everyone was mostly upright.

  The bull rider leaned over Hank, a hand on his shoulder as a medic knelt in the dirt next to him, attempting to stanch the blood dripping from his chin. A second medic supervised while two cowboys hoisted Red to his feet. He tried a gin
ger, limping step. Then another. By the third, Violet knew it would take a lot more than a can of oil and a roll of duct tape to fix the Tin Man this time.

  * * *

  The Jacobs family gathered in the rodeo office after the show for an emergency staff meeting. The five of them filled the room—her father, Steve, was six-and-a-half feet of stereotypical Texas cowboy in a silver belly hat that matched his hair, and Cole, a younger, darker model cast from the same mold. Even Violet stood five ten in her socks, and none of them were what you’d call a beanpole. It was just as well she’d never set her heart on being the delicate, willowy type. She wasn’t bred for it. Her five-year-old son, Beni, had tucked himself into the corner with his video game. Her mother, Iris, was a Shetland pony in a herd of Clydesdales, but could bring them all to heel with a few well-chosen words in that certain tone of voice.

  Now she shook her head, tsking sadly. “Did y’all see that knee? Looks like five pounds of walnuts stuffed into a two-pound bag.”

  “He won’t be back this year,” Violet said.

  Her dad hmphffed, but no one argued. Even if Red wanted to try, they couldn’t put him back out there for the three weeks that were left of the season. It wasn’t safe for Red or for the cowboys he was supposed to protect. It was sad to lose one of the old campaigners, but he’d had a good, long run—clear back to the days when the guys who fought bulls were called rodeo clowns, wore face paint and baggy Wranglers, and were expected to tell jokes and put on comedy acts. Nowadays, bullfighters were all about the serious business of saving cowboys’ necks. Leave the costumes and the standup comedy to the modern day clowns, pure entertainers who steered well clear of the bulls.

  “Saves us havin’ to tell Red it’s time to hang up the cleats,” Cole said, blunt as always. “Who we gonna get to replace him?”

  Steve sighed, pulling off his hat to run a hand through his flattened hair. “Violet can make some calls. Maybe Donny can finish out the year.”